my blog has changed.....

I logged on and many of my widgets are gone. The categories are gone. The divisions of my links are gone. My header looks different. What hAPPENED? Someone changed my blog and I don't know how to change it back and support is on vacation or something for a week........ I am not technical at all and have no clue what is going on......help.

I think part of the problem here is that WP assume that everyone knows what this CSS and Coraline thing is. I haven't a clue what they are talking about and would really welcome some explanation in plain English. Not everyone that runs a blog is a computer programmer or IT expert and I myself have basically learnt on the job without any prior knowledge. I assume there is still a lot I don't know how to do. I wish they would explain things in a normal way sometimes. Apart from that I think the WP service is excellent.

Hi, everybody. We're sorry if you've experienced any interruptions with your blog layout. You can read more about the switch from Cutline to Coraline here and here. Custom CSS users were notified in advance that Cutline would be replaced with Coraline and we've been working with them since that announcement to make sure the transition between themes is as smooth as possible.

If any Sidebar Widgets disappeared after the theme switch they should be available at Appearance → Widgets in the Inactive Widgets pane. If they're not, or if you need help setting up any of your widgets again, let us know and we'll do what we can to help you out.

The big issue, themeshaper, is that Coraline is a vastly inferior theme. Losing widgets is bad enough, but permanently having my look-and-feel reduced to this? Not acceptable. Like I drive a BMW and suddenly you put me in a Hyundai.

So if you no longer offer cutline, who does? (And if I do move, can I have the $10 back that I just paid a couple of days ago for another year of DNS redirection?)

WordPress, if we cannot have Cutline back, surely you can get the new theme to look less amateurish and more professional? There's really no comparison: Cutline was professional; Coraline seems to have been designed by a kid with no design sense.

I have to agree with mvwphoto there. This is really unacceptable. I started my day this morning with double-high-priority emails from my boss wondering what the hell happened to our company blog. Neither one of us can find any emails from WordPress with advance notification about this in any of the email accounts that we use for the blog. And now I'll be spending most of my day rewriting CSS instead of billing clients. Awesome.

Really not okay. We are probably going to look for other blog solutions, after I do something about this massive disaster.

I take back my earlier statement about not being notified - I did find the one single, solitary email from last Thursday. But c'mon, really????? One email, two business days ahead of time? What about some sort of alert on the blog itself, like they do when they want your money because your custom CSS is about to expire?

A single email less than a week ahead about an issue that will require time-consuming resolution just isn't okay.

I think it is a big mistake to underestimate the aggravation that the Coraline switch has caused to bloggers who are particular about what they put out there. The garishly yellow sticky feature is, without a doubt, an eternal affront to the senses. Ditto the fatter picture and avatar borders. As someone has already pointed out, they detract so much from the images they frame it's not funny.

Tthe people who gravitate towards Cutline don't do so on a whim. My surmise is that people who chose Cutline were people who had a professional bent. They would probably not touch some of the less-than-professional themes, let alone some of the other "garish" fare you offer. I think messing with this demographic's work, advertently or inadvertently, is really a big mistake.

What this experience has taught me is to watch my content closely with a view towards migrating some or all of it whenever a situation like this calls for it.

I deeply empathize with "Mvwphoto" and what he is going through. For websites that have a text and multi-media bent, Cutline has few equals - in the quasi-pro department, that is.

The guy who, characterized the backlash against the Coraline as unwarranted drama by "drama queens" in this thread:

is so out of touch with reality outside his peripheral vision it's not funny. I hope that WordPress staff do not feel that way behind a possible PR facade they are putting on here.

I certainly hope you bring Cutline back in some guise. Either that or you tweak Coraline to a point where it has the same spit and polish that Cutline had - which means deep-sixing that vomit yellow sticky for starters. Ditto the bloated frames around pictures and avatars. The tag cloud font sizes are wack, but they can be resized by tweaking the upper size percentages from 375% to like 175% max.

And while you are at it, the default setting should be set to not strip widgets when you or anyone else switches from from Cutline to Coraline. How on earth did that make sense when the designer for Coraline was coding this theme? This was supposed to be a replacement, remember? Other themes have not been designed as Cutline replacement don't do that.

"the people who gravitate towards Cutline don't do so on a whim. My surmise is that people who chose Cutline were people who had a professional bent."

Darthmooga: spot on. And to have this taken away by some kid who is having a hissy fit and who does not live in the real world is just not acceptable. Making your own "ego" issues affect others is not just thoughtless: it is *mean*.

I have moved my blog to a hosted solution, but after a day I am only part done. I'll never be back here (now I get the advert revenue, not WordPress). But I am not happy about this.

However, I do want to set the record straight about "…the default setting should be set to not strip widgets…
…Other themes have not been designed as Cutline replacement don't do that."

I switch themes on my test blogs many times daily when I'm volunteering in these forums and most the widgets from one theme usually change to the default set of the new theme. The switch between some themes may leave some widgets, but never all widgets. This doesn't seem to be a "default setting" so much as a matter of the significant and unavoidable differences between themes.

Oh, it was not my idea; the whole process has been folly. I only meant that was one of the least problematic things about the switch; something so simple yet it's known to be not controllable. I guess that means we agree?

When I first started here we used to worry about losing contents of text widgets. And while it is prudent to back them up elsewhere, at least I can say I've not lost any in multiple changes per day—it's a housekeeping chore to get rid of them…